City Council Special Meeting & Work Session

Jason Suffinstaffapproximately 7,700 square feet of retail approximately 29,600 square feet of office a 26 foot wide private east to west access drive from university drive to chambers road and a north to south greenway of varying widths that connect the davies property to the south should it be developed to northern properties and it does terminate at this property's lot line TO THE NORTH IT IS JUST TO THE EAST OF THE BUILDING THAT HOUSES THE KELLY'S OYSTER BAR

THE APPLICANT PROPOSES A NORTH TO SOUTH GREENWAY THAT GOES BETWEEN BUILDINGS B AND C CONNECTING FROM THE DAVIES PROPERTY AT THE SOUTH IT ALIGNS BOTH IN LOCATION AND GRADE IT CIRCUMNAVIGATES THROUGH THE SITE NORTH TO THE POINT THAT I HAD CALLED OUT PREVIOUSLY THERE ARE IS A PROPOSAL IN 637 spaces on two levels. The two levels don't connect currently. There are two entrances, one off of University Drive that gets down to a lower level, then an entrance here off the private street that gets into the upper level. The upper level is what's proposed to contain the majority of the commercial parking spaces. OF NOTE, THE PAVED SURFACE THROUGHOUT THE GREENWAY IS 15 FEET IN WIDTH. THE GREENWAY ITSELF VARIES IN WIDTH EXPANDING OUT IN CERTAIN AREAS AND IT IS CONSTRAINED

NOT REQUIRED THAT THE DAVIES PROPERTY HAD BEEN RESOND TO A PLANNED MIXED DISTRICT. WHAT'S ON THE SLIDE HERE SHOWS THE LOCATION OF THE PROPOSED SIDEWALKS. SO AGAIN, GETTING FROM THE GREENWAY ON THE NORTHERN PART OF THE SITE, THERE ARE PORTIONS OF SIDEWALKS WITH CROSSWALKS THAT WOULD TAKE YOU TO CHAMBRIDGE ROAD. NOTHING WOULD TAKE YOU TO UNIVERSITY. ONE WOULD HAVE TO CROSS THE STREET. THERE IS A CONTINUOUS SIDEWALK THAT SPANS CHAMBRIDGE ROAD TO UNIVERSITY DRIVE. YOU MAY RECALL DURING THE DAVIES APPLICATION THERE WAS DISCUSSION THAT THE NEXT DEVELOPER TO THE NORTH WOULD COMPLETE THE STREETSCAPE AND PROVIDE THE SIDEWALK CONNECTION FROM UNIVERSITY TO CHAMBERGE ROAD ON THAT PORTION OF THE PROPERTY.

and traffic calming was used as an example there was a desire to see more open space and into and to increase the choke point widths of the greenway improvement needed for pedestrian circulation by adding the sidewalk on the southern property line which is what the SO POINTED OUT IN THEIR MEETING. THEY WANT TO ENSURE THAT THE GRADE MATCHES THE DAVIES PROPERTY TO ENSURE THE GREENWAY CONNECTION IS FEASIBLE. THE HEIGHT WAS DISCUSSED, NOT NECESSARILY A CONCERN, BUT THE STEP BACK ON UNIVERSITY DRIVE WAS SOMETHING THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION BELIEVES THAT COULD BE ADDRESSED. uh the the building is four stories it steps back a few feet before the fifth story is there and then it steps back uh farther back to the sixth the the planning commission believed that more

Clark MasseyapplicantNext slide if we can. This is a view from the Chain Bridge Road and to be able to give you a feel for what the project would look like. We are we believe that the architect has done a very good job of creating a modern and vibrant type of an atmosphere for it. We are looking at the restaurant in the the corner to try and address some of the various comments that we've heard from the BAR. So if we can go to the next slide. So at this juncture I'd like to go ahead and switch some of the conversation and talk about the Greenway etc. And if you will I'd like to engage your imagination of almost taking a walk with me, starting from the Davies property and the southern portion of it. As you will see, the greenway at that juncture,

of course, it terminates because that is the ends of court community. So that's a starting point. So it's 43 feet wide. The length of the greenway is 166 feet, over half the length of a football field. And it goes up and connects with their east-west roadway. If we can then shift to the next one, again, kind of picking up, you'll see at the bottom of the screen the Davies property where it is crossing to ours. At that initial point, our greenway width is 40 feet. However, if you go back approximately 70 feet, then it opens up and you will see that this is one of our two courtyards that is there this is providing and the the distance from our the right side wall to the end of that courtyard area that's 170 feet so it's a very open type of a field it closes down again as you go further on

Speaker 17the Davies property as well as from our site and how do they get to both Chainbridge Road and University Drive. When you look at the Davies property, all of their access points are along the north side of their building. The black dash represents their proposed sidewalk. Their sidewalk abuts where their access points are going to be. Their sidewalk also obviously is abutting where their greenway is. Our proposed building has no entrances except at this location THAT I'M POINTING OUT. THAT IS KIND OF WHAT WE CALL A BACK DOOR ENTRANCE IF YOU WILL INTO THIS PARTICULAR BUILDING. WE ARE PROVIDING A SIDEWALK FROM THIS POINT BACK OUT TO UNIVERSITY. THERE IS ALSO A PUBLIC SPACE HERE WHICH WE CAN TALK ABOUT DURING QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS IF YOU

Anthony AmosAnd this is more of a comment rather than a question. It's just, and I understand the comparisons with the Davies property because it's adjacent to you and you'd be sharing a greenway. But Davies property also had significantly less acreage. And so just a little disappointed that in terms of open space, we only got to 10.79, which is just right above the minimum threshold. I expected a little bit more. that's just one of the things I wanted to point out and I understand that you had the surface parking right there I'm not sure if you've had conversations about converting some of the residential parking space into commercial is that a zoning hindrance, maybe that's a staff question alright, all good

Speaking of sidewalks, So while I understand why you say you feel they're not necessary, and I would concur with you on the private street on the north side in particular, that's fine. Where the Davies property line is on that side of the building,

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerOkay. Yeah, it would be interesting to see all together how those numbers are adding up toward that aim. Could you talk a little bit more about there was a mention in INTERPARCEL CONNECTIONS. THERE WERE COMMENTS ABOUT IN RELATION TO THE DAVIES PROPERTY AND THAT SORT OF THING. ANYTHING ELSE THAT MIGHT HIGHLIGHT HOW THIS SORT OF BUILDS OUT THAT WHOLE AREA?

Clark Masseyapplicantan absolute concrete mass, if you will, that is there, and then to build units on top of it. The numbers just don't work if we don't get the density. So, again, the trade-off being, we've got the density, which matches the Davies. By the way, based for comparison, the assessed value of the existing structure on the Davies property is $262,000. So, again, it's coming down to the math. We felt that the greenway is the vital importance, and that is the offset. I mean, it really comes down to that. That is the explanation.

Thomas PetersonJust to follow up on the part of the community feedback on this. First, there's been a lot of indexing. What I think I've heard this evening is indexing the size, scale, and the structure of what happens here based on what happened next door at the Davies property. you're probably aware that resulted in quite a bit of concern by the community. So the idea that that is precedent setting and should be the basis upon and the template upon which we do other developments is I don't hear that that's accepted in the community. And so I think we need to be thinking a little bit more independently about this rather than kind of benchmarking what we're doing here against that project. In this case, part of what's going on that I think is creating concerns, it's not just height.